


Remembering Us

by queercapwriting (queergirlwriting)



Series: Where's Your Head At? [34]
Category: Captain Marvel (2019)
Genre: Carol x Maria, F/F, Like, So Soft., almost too soft, but this is like, danbeau, like legit, soft carol x maria, such soft wifes, there's no such thing as too soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-05-13 08:49:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19247824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queergirlwriting/pseuds/queercapwriting
Summary: Carol meeting Maria and Monica again, piecing together her life from before the Kree abducted her. Ft. a very, very Soft™ reunion kiss (I cried).





	Remembering Us

She remembers bits and pieces. Karaoke, and pinball, and laughter. So, so much laughter. So much laughter, even though it doesn’t seem like her life on Earth - she’s still getting her mind around that, that she had an entire life on Earth, in addition to her rebirth on Hala - was particularly easy.

Because she also has flashes of a man - Dad, she knows - who berates her for trying, berates her for doing what he encourages her brothers to do. Who, she thinks, never hits her but always looks like he wants to: who’s never proud of her, who punishes her when she’s hurt the most, who tells her she was asking for it when her lips and knees and hands and face are bleeding.

But the laughter. With a woman. Maria. Higher, further, faster. And a baby. A little girl. Lieutenant Trouble.

She doesn’t remember that little blonde girl - that little blonde girl that she knows is herself - ever really laughing. Unless it was out of spite, out of protection for herself.

But most of her memory flashes of her as an adult are of laughter. With a woman. And her daughter. Their daughter? It feels like that. The little girl that she used to teach about the stars and fly around before a dinner Maria made them all - like a family, one she didn’t seem to have, not really, when she was herself a little girl - feels like hers, too. Somehow.

And then she goes to that makeshift garage of a flight hangar in Louisiana, and she sees that woman. Maria Rambeau. She has a last name, now, in Carol’s mind, thanks to the files she and Fury dug up.

Maria Rambeau. Deep in thought, at work. The sight feels more familiar to Carol than anything ever had on Hala, and she’s grateful that this Maria woman doesn’t see her at first. It gives her a few moments to calibrate, to buffer, to process.

But then another voice - one she also recognizes, one that also stirs her heart in ways she hasn’t felt in an entire lifetime (and apparently, she’s lived two) - bursts out of the cockpit, along with a little ball of a body, running into her arms, calling her Auntie Carol (is that a typical C-53 name?) and telling her that she and her mother always knew she wasn’t dead, always knew they were lying.

Lying. It stirs something in her, and even as this little girl hugs her, she wants to pull away. And she wants to drop to her knees and hold the little girl back, and never, ever let go, because it feels right. It feels family.

But she chooses to pull away, because this is too much, too terrifying, too confusing, and she’ll just disappoint the girl anyway. Because she’s Vers, not… she doesn’t even know what.

And she pulls away, gently, gently - the Kree never taught her to be gentle, so where the hell did she get that? - because now, the woman has turned around, is staring at her, is looking at her like she’s seeing an apparition, a comrade back from being a prisoner of the Skrulls, wondering how she could have possibly escaped.

This look, at least, Carol recognizes. This woman in front of her, stepping toward her with her lips parted, is a fellow soldier. With, as Fury pointed out earlier, a personal stake in whatever war she’s been fighting.

Whatever war they used to be fighting together. Apparently. But all she remembers of this woman is a solid jawline, showing the boys how they do it, and laughter, laughter, laughter. So much laughter on a planet where that seems like a limited resource. Laughter with this woman, and with the little girl who thinks she knows her, who’s trying to hug her, who wants to be hugged back.

Her heart, somehow, is broken. And hopeful.

Even though she doesn’t know what it’s breaking for, or what it’s hopeful about.

This woman, this Maria, is quieter, more restrained, than her daughter. She is with her body, anyway. She doesn’t hug Carol, doesn’t touch her. Though her hands keep opening and closing at her sides, and her eyes won’t leave Carol’s face, her body. She’s never felt more exposed, more naked, even receiving orders from the Supreme Intelligence with the face of another woman that she’d never seen before, but who somehow felt familiar.

But not quite like this woman feels familiar.

It’s that familiarity - that look in the woman’s eyes, the insistence of the child that she stay, that she hear everything, because she was mostly a baby when Auntie Carol got taken away, and she doesn’t want to leave her, not again, and her mother’s eyes flood with tears, but only for a moment, before she agrees that the little girl can stay and listen - that makes Carol talk.

Despite Fury’s objections that you don’t just go telling people about aliens and shape-shifters and whatnot.

The little girl laughs - Monica, that’s right, that feels right, even though by rights everything on this planet should feel unfamiliar and more than a little inferior - and Carol finds herself smiling back.

She finds herself wanting to impress her. And her mother. And she’s not quite sure where that’s coming from, but she thinks the laughter from the memories - from whatever Talos put in her head - has something to do with it. That feeling of safety, of intimacy, of family. Of us against the world.

The life she’s been living, on Hala, has only ever been her against the world. Alone. And no one would tell her why, not really.

Because back there, she’d been respected. Revered, even. But she was always kept at a distance, separate, somehow, from the camaraderie she saw elsewhere, between people who weren’t her.

Not like with these people that she’s never met, but keep looking at her like they know her. Like they love her. Even though she’s talking about aliens and wars they’ve never heard of, and, apparently, calling herself by a name this woman has never known.

But her heart leaps when Lieutenant Trouble gives her photon blast her seal of approval - when she makes water boil with just a simple touch of her hand.

And she laughs, her eyes getting squinty in a way that doesn’t feel like it fits her face, but that also feels like it fits perfectly - that laughter, all that laughter - when she falls into a banter with Maria that feels like it’s been there for years. Never gone, never suspended, never taken from her.

She wonders vaguely what Fury sees, seeing her laughing with Maria like this. She wonders what Monica thinks. She wonders what’s behind the grief in Maria’s eyes.

She wonders what it would be like to laugh that much with someone, to love a child so much with someone, and then for them to be gone, reported dead, for six years. And then for them to stroll back up to your home with only disjointed memories of nights at a bar and early morning walks through base.

“Where’s your head at?” Maria had asked her in one of the flashes she’d gotten.

In the clouds, still. Scraping for more memories.

Because she can’t quite see the vehicles Maria is describing, their race to base the morning of the crash. But she can totally see herself violating the agreed upon rules of engagement, and she can definitely see why she used to laugh so much with this woman.

Because whatever Talos did to violate her mind, maybe there was some truth underneath it, after all.

And when she realizes who Talos is, who Yon-Rogg is - who actually murdered Lawson and abducted her and rewrote her entire life and stripped this, this laughter and this family and this… love… away from her, because that’s what it was, not some benevolent rescue and gift from the Supreme Intelligence - she still doesn’t remember, but it starts to make even more sense.

The way she feels when Maria hugs her. Not just overwhelmed from the weight of everything she’s learned. Not just catharsis and reassurance from being called a best friend, a pain in the ass, and something that fits, so, so well - Carol Danvers - but something in her body.

Because when Maria tells her to come here, that she’s got her, and when their bodies touch, it’s… perfect.

It’s home and it’s right and it’s… it’s everything.

Monica comes up to her, a few nights later, after they’ve found Talos’s family, after she’s found which side she needs to be on, as she’s sitting on the couch with Talos and Maria.

Uncharacteristically quiet, Monica stands there, in front of Carol, bouncing softly back and forth on the balls of her feet.

“What do you need, baby?” Maria wants to know. But Carol squints. Monica doesn’t need anything from Maria, just now. It’s her that Monica needs something from. And she thinks Maria knows that. And she’s grateful that Maria is trying to make this as gentle as possible for her.

“Come here, Lieutenant Trouble,” she gestures, opening up her lap to the child. Her… child. Because what was a vague impression before is now something she’s pretty certain of.

Watching Talos reunite with his family made her realize that, beyond a shadow of residual doubt. The integrity of her memories. Of herself.

Monica smiles like Carol just changed her entire world - and maybe she had - and scrambles into her lap.

“I’m bigger than I used to be. Sorry,” she murmurs, but Carol shushes her and kisses her face.

“No apologies for growing, Lieutenant Trouble.” She tickles her belly slightly, and Monica squirms and giggles.

“I missed you,” Monica says, and Carol feels Talos and Maria’s eyes on her.

“I know I didn’t remember,” she chooses her words carefully, wanting to be as truthful, as accurate, as possible. “But I think my heart knew I was missing something. You and your mom.”

“I knew you’d come back,” she burrows deeper into Carol’s chest until her breathing evens out and she falls asleep, like she used to all those years ago.

“I’ll -” Maria starts, almost apologetic.

“No, stay. I’ll put her to bed. I’ll be right back.”

And Monica in her arms - bigger, now, than she was then - feels right. Feels perfect.

“Auntie Carol?” Monica murmurs as Carol wriggles her under the covers and tucks the child in, Talos’s child already fast asleep on the rollout mattress next to them.

“Yeah, Monica?” she asks, with another kiss to her forehead.

“We never gave up on you.”

Tears sting Carol’s eyes, and her body shudders with the force of it, even as she kisses Monica’s forehead, lifting her head to tie her scarf around her hair. Her fingers remember how to do it, even if her brain doesn’t, yet.

“That’s because we’re family,” Carol promises, because her heart remembers how to do it, even if her brain doesn’t yet.

Monica falls back to sleep with a smile on her face, and Carol lets a few silent tears fall before she unravels herself from her crouch and tiptoes to the door.

Talos is in the hallway, watching her with his head cocked, his eyes gentle.

“I can help give you back the rest of your memories, you know. If you want them right away. But they will come back on their own, if you give them time.”

Carol just nods, shutting Monica’s bedroom door softly, turning the handle so the click won’t wake the sleeping children inside.

“Two lives, floating around in one head. I’m sorry for what they’ve done to you.”

Carol shakes her head, this time, fire crossing over her eyes. “It’s nothing to what they’ve done to you and your people.”

Talos puts his hand out, and Carol surprises herself slightly by taking it. He covers her hand with both of his own. “Both of our wives, and both of our children,” he tells her, his eyes wide and sincere. “Thank you for helping both of us find them again.”

He leans down and presses a kiss to her hand before heading back to the living room.

Carol’s head spins, and she tries to breathe. The wall holds her up, and she lets tears fall.

“Where’s your head at?” Maria’s voice is soft and there’s a hitch to it, like she could cry at any moment, too.

“Did you hear? What Talos said to me?”

Maria shakes her head. “No. He wanted to check on you, after you went to tuck Monica in. And I came to check on you after he came back.” She smiles, soft and tentative.

Carol doesn’t bother wiping her tears before she turns around. She knows that Maria would know, anyway.

“I…” she tries to start, but she doesn’t have the words. She doesn’t think any words will ever be enough.

The things she’s done. The atrocities she’s committed.

She’s not whole anymore. If she ever was.

This time, it’s Maria stepping forward, and Maria taking her hands. It’s different than when Talos did it: for one thing, Maria’s thumb swipes across Carol’s knuckles, and Carol’s do the same, like instinct. For another, Talos felt like a companion. Maria feels like…

Maria feels like everything.

“I…” Carol tries again, but words fail again.

Maria takes a step closer.

Carol takes a step closer.

They let their foreheads touch, their noses. They breathe each other’s breath and they cry each other’s tears. Soft, quiet. No words. No sounds.

Just breath, and trembling, and the most intimate touch Carol’s felt in an entire lifetime.

“What do you remember?” Maria asks after what feels like years, standing in this hallway outside the bedroom that their child is happily sharing with an alien refugee child. Her new best friend.

“Only what I’ve told you. The bar, the karaoke.”

“So, the good stuff.” Maria chuckles, and Carol lets out a sigh of laughter into Maria’s lips.

Their foreheads are still touching, their hands still together. Their bodies, too, now, have barely any gaps between them.

“Did we… were we…” Carol knows Maria knows. She can feel it in her breath.

“I don’t feel right telling you if you still can’t remember. I don’t want you to do anything because you think you should.”

“And I don’t want you to feel like you have to stop your entire world because I came back.”

Maria laughs again, but this time it’s bitter. Like if Carol weren’t holding her up, she’d be destroying Yon-Rogg and the Supreme Intelligence with her bare hands.

“Our entire world stopped when they took you from me. From us.”

“So we were…”

“Carol.” Maria’s voice cracks, and Carol nuzzles closer, Maria’s forehead against hers making her forget whose tears are whose.

“I don’t remember yet, Maria, but Talos promises it’ll come back. And I… I know this feels right. This is the only thing that’s felt right in an entire lifetime. Does it feel right to you?”

Her lips graze Maria’s, but only just. Only almost accidentally. Maria doesn’t pull away. Not a kiss. Just a touch.

A touch that makes them both tremble and shake and shed more tears.

“Touching you has always felt right to me, Carol. You’ve always felt right to me.” It’s a whisper, and Carol’s sure that if their entire bodies weren’t touching, she wouldn’t have been able to hear it.

“Maria,” she murmurs, and this time, it’s Maria’s lips that touch hers. Not a kiss. Not yet. Just a touch.

“May I?”

“Do you want this?”

They ask at the same time, and they both blink out tears at the same time as they sigh out laughter.

“Yes,” they whisper into each other’s mouths, just before their lips meet in earnest. More than a touch. A kiss.

And it’s absolutely, perfectly right.


End file.
